A second Livingston by-election of the year follows the passing of a long-serving Labour councillor. 2017 results here look very similar to that other by-election – so will the outcome here follow with an SNP win despite Labour winning the 2017 recalc?
A by-election saw an Independent keeping the seat in the family, as a son succeeded his late father in a storming victory that left the SNP and Labour in the dust.
An expected victory for the Conservatives in a ward they’d led in 2017, against a backdrop of Greens and Lib Dems unable to rely on their candidate’s personal votes this time.
Sure, Holyrood is unlikely to vote for my hyper-proportional, FPTP-free preferred voting system. But there are some solid, yet mild, reforms to AMS that could vastly improve it.
With analysis of the real election results out of the way, BBS now turns to one of my pet topics – hypothetical electoral reforms to improve proportionality!
Scotland came into the election with 16 marginal seats, and has left with the same number – though only 12 are the same seats. Tactical voting was a story of the election, and seems to have benefitted Labour and Lib Dems more than Conservatives.
The sad passing of a very well respected local Independent triggers an unpredictable contest, with his son seeking to keep the seat in the family, against relatively evenly matched SNP and Labour candidacies.
An election that saw very few seats change hands nonetheless exposed fascinating patterns of shifting party support across Scotland.
Following the sad passing of the ward’s Lib Dem councillor, the Conservatives would seem most likely to emerge on top, given their first place in 2017 and other recent elections.
The first in a series of deeper dives into the Holyrood results, this piece looks at how each party’s vote share was spread across the country.
